Tuesday, August 4, 2015

When President Hinckley said that there's a better way to do
missionary work than knocking on doors, he wasn't kidding. My companion and I
have done a LOT of door knocking (which is actually hand clapping here in
Brazil), and it's a ton of work with very little results. Don't get me wrong, I
firmly believe that miracles can happen and all that, but it's not exactly the
most effective thing to do. It's truly a miracle when we find people that not
only let us share our message, but want to LIVE according to what we teach and
DISCOVER the truths that we know and love.

But, even with these frustrations, I feel like the Lord will
recognize the effort we're putting forth to do this work. After days of
dissapointment there are miracle moments that prove that we're not at the helm!
One of those moments happened this week. About a month ago, we found a
less-active lady who has an 11 year-old daughter who was never baptised. This
lady isn't able to come to church very often because of her "husband"
(not legally married or anything, just living together and having kids together
like normal), who doesn't accept the missionaries at home. Because of that
particular problem, we always mark lessons at the church, but a couple of weeks
had gone by without them showing up at these appointments. We were just about
giving up on the family, and we were going to give them one last chance this
week. Finially they showed up at the church, mother & daughter, and the
daughter prayed about the message of the Restoration, went to church this Sunday
and will be baptised next week!

For lack of other remarkable stories, I'll get on with the
news. My companion Elder Smittenaar is getting transferred to...ALTA FLORESTA,
and I'm sending him with a bunch of letters for the people there. My new
companion is a Brazilian, Elder Borges... I think he's relatively new in the
mission...and he'll probably get here on Wednesday!